Hasek, Hudler, Kopecky, and a Czech-and-Slovakian soup

The Stanley Cup spent this past weekend in the Czech Republic and then Slovakia. On Friday, the recently-retired Dominik Hasek had a private party with the Cup, and Red Wings forward Jiri Hudler tagged along with Stanley as he headed across the border to Trencin, Slovakia to hang out with Tomas Kopecky, who had what I would argue is a dish that makes "Swedish blood bread" sound yummy--tripe soup--out of the Cup.

Linguistically, attempting to glean what's going on in the Czech press isn't easy, online translators included. Czech is a little easier to translate than Slovak, which is to Czech what Danish is to German, or...Well, there isn't an English analog, but there are some parts that are very similar, as if the two languages are dialects of each other, and other words are completely different (when you look at the Czech language, all those little slashes and lines over consonants and vowels are called diacritical marks, and the "ˇ" that makes Dominik Hašek's name "HASH-ik" instead of "HASS-ik" is actually called a "haček" [hahsh-ek, ironically enough] in Czech, but it's "mäkčeň" in Slovak), so some of the translations I'm using to glean what's being said are pretty darn loose.

Language lesson over. Here's the summary of the various stories from the Czech and Slovak press over this past weekend:

Hasek spoke to Denkisport.cz's Michal Kosturik about his plans, and he admitted that while he "definitely won't play" during the 08-09 season, and feels that he's said "farewell" to the NHL, he's not quite sure if he's done playing hockey, period. He says that he enjoyed his time with Hudler and Kopecky in the hockey town that is Vsetin, and while he's from Pardubice, he chose to have his party with the Cup in Prague because it was more convenient for the 150-or-so people he invited to the shindig. Hasek also admitted that he did indeed fall into his pool in 2002, and he made sure to say that the same Cup-keeper who rescued it from drowning was going to be present at his party!

CTK confirmed that the Cup as headed to Vsetin and Nove Dubnici, Slovakia on Saturday. Kopecky said that he would take the Cup to the town square in Trencin for a public reception, and then to the city's children's hospital, and to a local rink, finishing up with a private party on Saturday night. Kopecky said that winning the Cup made his ACL injury hurt a lot less, and his next dream is to play in the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Cup's schedule for Sunday was an all-day trip from Trencin back to Prague, where it would board a flight for Moscow, and then head to Ekaterinburg, where Pavel Datsyuk will celebrate with the trophy on Monday.

Denkisport.cz finished up its coverage of the Cup's travels through the Czech Republic with Michal Kosturik's recap of Hudler's day with the Cup, and there's an obligatory interview with Hudler's girlfriend, Simone Krainove, who admits that Hudler's getting the proper push to physically challenge his slightly lazy self under T.R. Goodman's tutelage in Los Angeles, and she also says that Hudler's a bit amusing when he's celebrating with the Cup because he's "hyper" when he's not inebriated, too, but she feels that he's a "normal guy" and says that the two aren't together because they want to appear in newspapers or be called a celebrity couple--they just care for each other.

Kopecky's day with the Cup received a tremendous amount of coverage in the Slovak press. Hokej.sk provided a report and photo gallery courtesy of the Slovak News Agency, SITA, and it mostly confirms that Kopecky received a huge reception in Trencin's town square.

Pravda.sk's report includes a substantial photo gallery, and it says that about 1,000 people were in the town square to cheer on Kopecky, and Hudler told SME.sk that when he slept in the same bed as the Stanley Cup, he couldn't help but laugh when he woke up next to it.

Dennik Sport posted a link to a Youtube interview (in Slovak) with Kopecky in Dubnica, Slovakia, published the contents thereof (in a very hard-to-translate dialect), and TASR's report states that Kopecky believed that the small turn-out during the event had to do with a rather nasty thunderstorm taking place in Trencin on Saturday morning, that he received a check for 51,000 Slovak Koruna (about $2,600) to give to the city's children's hospital (it will be used to purchase a spirometer, which measures lung functions) in a charity auction. Kopecky's wife and son joined him for the celebration, and yes, he did have tripe soup out of the Cup--for breakfast!